PRINCE Charles, we're reliably informed, costs each of us only 3.5p a year.

That's down a half-pence on last year and this time we've got Camilla thrown in like a supermarket bargain - buy one, get one free-ish.

It gets better, the Duchess of Cornwall cost the taxpayer a mere £2,000 in her first official year as a member of the Royal Family.

You've got to hand it to Sir Michael Peat, accountant, private secretary and forelock tugger-in-chief to the couple, he's made a good fist of making the Waleses look as cheap as chips. HRH, we're told, carried out 650 public engagements last year and helped to raise £110million for his 16 main charities. (Like the Chancellor, he has a talent for helping people part with their money.)

What's neatly sidestepped is the nagging question of why the Prince - financed by a feudal past - managed to pay just 23 per cent tax on his £14million earnings from the Duchy of Cornwall last year.

How can this ever be right while many on a tiny fraction of that sum are being whacked for the full 40 per cent?

So much for the transparency called for when MPs last year accused Charles's aides of "jiggery-pokery" and "fiddling" the books. It doesn't take a fiscal genius, after wading through HRH's pie charts and balance sheets, to figure out what really is transparent - we've been bamboozled.

Look closely and you'll see the £336,000 a year rent Charles pays for Highgrove goes into the Duchy of Cornwall's account which means, effectively, it goes straight back to him.

If that's not fiddling what is? I can't be a hypocrite, most of us would love to benefit from this kind of constructive accounting.

The problem is most of us can't afford expensive money-men to play "jiggerypokery" with our finances.

The Prince, of course, is part of a vastly wealthy family who expect to be entitled to legal tax avoidance. As it stands the Queen and her eldest son are still exempt from capital gains or corporation tax. As MP Ian Davidson says: "In this day and age it's an anomaly."

When asked to pay inheritance tax on his mother's estate we witnessed recently the cringe-making sight of Lord Linley selling off everything, from Princess Margaret's hairpins to her priceless antique jewellery.

The message being that somehow he'd be left in penury if he didn't flog these national treasures.

What absolute nonsense. He lived rentfree at Kensington Palace for years, owns a thriving furniture business and banked the £2.5million he made from selling the Princess's magnificent Mustique mansion. Built on land, incidentally, which was gifted to her.

The truth is that years of privilege and exemption has spoiled the Royals and made them greedy. Meanwhile, as Prince Charles's spin doctors work overtime to justify his existence, and £270,000-a-week pay cheque, nothing can dispel public disdain over the revelation that his Byzantine court continues to flourish with 11 private secretaries plus another 10 flunkies.

This includes chefs, grooms, gardeners and presumably the passer of the royal loo roll, not to mention the valet whose job it is to put toothpaste on the royal toothbrush.

Prince Charles's personal expenditure amounts to £2.1million a year and that's excluding the £1,584,000 of taxpayers' cash he receives to cover travel and expenses for his Clarence House office.

We're not told, incidentally, what his security bill comes to - suffice to say in the current climate it would probably pay for enough coppers to police a small country.

I have never viewed the Royal Family as an anachronism, quite the opposite, I respect the tradition of the monarchy. But quite honestly, they are beginning to tax even my loyalty.